Analyzing Blended/Hybrid courses.

I assessed two online courses using a rubric composed of elements which I chose prior to completing any of the courses.

Carnegie Mellon University –http://oli.cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-free-open-courses/
N.C. State University – http://ma114online.blogspot.com/p/static.html

It was difficult for me to decide which elements to evaluate and include in the rubric. I chose the items to evaluate before I looked at any of the online courses available. I would have preferred to evaluate using all of the criteria and then reported on just those elements that were easiest to evaluate given this assignment.

I found few middle-of-the-road rankings with the items I chose to evaluate. Either the course did something very well or it didn’t do it at all. I found it interesting that the Math course required WebAssign which is not free. I can see the need for a math class to utilize a service like this as entering math symbols on a computer is a challenge.

I loved how the Carnegie Mellon site was super easy to get straight to the content. The other site does too, but the Carnegie site, I knew right away that the course was self-paced and I didn’t expect any teacher interaction. With the Math course, as soon as I saw WebAssign, I knew I would receive input from an instructor. This being a math course, I think most students need that.

Teaching a blended course is not like teaching in a traditional classroom at all. The upside down or flipped course is more like the ideal for this environment. The student is told what to study and comes to class prepared to put theories into practice or discuss the study topics with peers. For the teacher, the role becomes more of moderator, cheerleader, coach and critic when necessary.

Giving assignments to be turned in online in the form of an online presentation, website/blog, video etc. is an outstanding way to develop student’s skills in online design and presentation. I love this since the business world as well as many other fields are already doing this.